


Unexpected

by River_Summers



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/River_Summers/pseuds/River_Summers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wedding invitation should never come as a surprise. It should never comes as this much of a surprise!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second fanfiction. I'm still only 13!

PROLOGUE  
  
Molly held the wedding invitation loosely in her left hand. The cup of tea that had been clutched in the other was tipping over slowly, spilling tea on her dress, but she didn’t notice. She quickly scanned the invitation again. You are invited to the wedding of John Watson and Mary Mortstan. Molly shook her head in disbelief. How had this happened? What about Sherlock? John loved him. Why was he getting married? A scalding sensation on her thigh drew Molly out of her reverie, and she set the invitation aside. She would wonder about this later. For now, there were brains that needed dissecting.  
  
3 Months ago...

John Watson sighed. He should have known that Sherlock remembering to pick him up was impossible, but there was always that slight hope that maybe, just maybe, he meant more than a saliva coagulation experiment did to Sherlock Holmes. Apparently not. Sighing again, he heaved up the groceries and started the long trek home.  
  
***  
  
‘Oh, you’re back already.’  
  
Sherlock Holmes was lying on the floor with his hands in the air, giving the room’s newest occupant a blank look. John, yet again, sighed inwardly.  
  
‘I’ve been gone for three hours, because someone—’ he glared at Sherlock ‘—forgot to pick me up, even after I’d specifically asked them to.’  
  
‘Two.’  
  
‘What?’  
  
Sherlock slowly turned his head. ‘You’ve been gone two hours, and you shouldn’t have taken Elm Street. It would have been quicker not to.’  
  
John groaned, dumped the groceries and flopped down on the sofa. ‘Go on. Stoke your ego and tell me how you knew I had taken Elm Street.’  
  
Sherlock smiled. ‘Elm street is one of three places between this flat and the shop that sells Chinese food. You smell like Chinese, so you took Elm Street, Winchester Street or Locksley Street. Locksley Street is closed for repairs, so it wasn’t that one, and Winchester street has covers over the walkways, but you’re wet from the rain, all of which points to the fact that you took Elm Street.’  
  
John ground his teeth. ‘If you’re so clever, you do the shopping, make the meals, hoover the floor, remove fingernails from the microwave-’  
  
‘Those were for a very important experiment.’  
  
‘Oh yeah?’  
  
‘How loudly you would scream when you found them.’  
  
Had John Watson not been a man of extraordinary patience, Sherlock Holmes would have now been finding it very hard to breathe.  
  
***  
  
‘God, I’m bored. John, do something interesting.’  
  
John Watson peered over the top of his newspaper. Sherlock was lying draped over the arms of a chair, his head flung back dramatically. John considered. Anything to make him shut up.  
  
‘Go and find three people that have a massive secret that no one else knows, then write it on here.’ John handed Sherlock a blank pad. ‘That should keep you busy for a few hours.’  
  
Sherlock stood. ‘Five minutes.’  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘If I can do this in five minutes, will you do something interesting?’  
  
John rolled his eyes. He may be Sherlock Holmes, but he wasn’t that good.  
  
‘Yes.’  
  
Sherlock gave a smile that would have had Chuck Norris running for cover.  
  
‘Deal.’  
  
***  
  
1:37. Sherlock weaved in and out of the crowd, searching. That lady with the hat? No, her husband knew that she was cheating on him. The shopkeeper with five years to live? Nope, common knowledge. Aha! That woman! Judging by her clothes, she worked in a big corporate office, but she had no tea or coffee stains on her teeth, so she wasn’t English and she had a vague accent... German? No, Russian. That napkin she was holding was too stiff to have ever been used, but quite old judging by the edges, which meant she was taking it out of her pocket regularly. She was holding it close to her mouth... a miniature walkie-talkie! She was a corporate spy! Sherlock smiled, snapping a quick picture of her, and jotting down his findings in his notebook. One down, two to go.  
  
2:50. What was happening to England? Why didn’t more people lie and cheat and steal? Sherlock frowned and glared at the crowd of people moving past him as though they had done him a great personal wrong. Did that man’s girlfriend know he was gay? Yes, she did, but she was going to cling to him till the end. Was the Chinese shopkeeper aware that his daughter was skimming off the profits? He’d known for ages. God, why were so many people so annoyingly truthful? Sherlock suddenly sat up a little straighter. What was that in the road worker’s pocket? Why did he look so furtive? Ah ha! A thief! Sherlock smiled, snapped a photo and jotted it down in his notebook. Finally, someone bad.  
  
4:01. John watched Sherlock through the apartment window. He looked a bit frantic, his head bobbing up and down through the crowd as he searched. Suddenly, he stopped. John frowned as he watched him race through the door and heard his feet slapping on the stairs. If Sherlock thought he could get away with making up the third entry, then he was going to get a piece of John Watson’s mind.  
  
Sherlock burst through the door, panting and waving his pen in John’s direction.  
  
‘You— you—’ He took a deep breath. ‘You think that I don’t know what you think every time someone thinks that we’re... you know.’ He made a wafting gesture between them with his hands. ‘You think I don’t know how much you want to not correct them.’  
  
John swallowed. Damn it. He had noticed. ‘So, three big secrets in five minutes. Must be a record.’  
  
Sherlock grinned. ‘Now you’ve got to do something interesting. Go on. Something I won’t expect.’  
  
John studied Sherlock carefully. He knew just the thing to wipe the smile off his face. Leaning forwards, John began to close his eyes... and slapped Sherlock hard, who staggered back slightly, an expression of hurt on his face.  
  
‘I thought you were going to kiss me!’  
  
John smiled serenely and settled back into his armchair with the newspaper.  
  
‘Exactly.’  
  
Sherlock shook his head and flopped into the chair opposite his roommate’s. He leant forwards till he was on the edge of his seat, craning his neck to see what John was reading. The paper was still too far away, so Sherlock simply removed it from John’s hands. John slumped back in his chair and closed his eyes.  
  
‘You could have asked.’  
  
Sherlock shook out the paper contentedly. ‘It would have taken too long.’  
  
John resisted the now familiar impulse to strangle the man sitting opposite him, and instead studied him through half-closed eyes. The sunlight streamed through the window behind him, creating a golden halo effect on Sherlock’s mop of curly brown hair, and sending shadows flickering across his ridiculously high cheekbones. John wondered vaguely what they would feel like if he ran his thumb over them, then mentally shook himself for being ridiculous. God, he needed to get out. Standing up once more, he glared at Sherlock for being such a beautiful bastard, grabbed his coat, and stalked out the door. He wondered if that girl at the clinic wanted someone to buy her dinner.  
  
***  
  
Sherlock glanced up an hour later, realising that the paper had dropped out of his hands some time ago. It took him only a second to work out where his infatuated roommate had gone. His coat and keys had disappeared, along with the notebook he used to write down the details of girls he met, so that he didn’t get them mixed up. Some lucky female was going to be treated to a luxury takeaway tonight.  
  
Sherlock gave a dramatic sigh, and glanced at the groceries John had bought earlier that day. They were all the way away on the sofa. Sherlock sighed again, simply because it felt good, and made a half-hearted attempt at reaching the bag closest to him. It remained a meter away.  
  
‘Sod that.’ He muttered. Raising his voice, he hollered, ‘MRS HUDSON!’  
  
The said landlady appeared at the open apartment door looking a bit flustered. She glanced around. ‘Everything alright, Sherlock dear?’  
  
Sherlock smiled. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mrs Hudson?’  
  
She looked quite flattered. ‘Why, that would be lovely dear. How kind.’  
  
‘Make me one while you’re at it then, will you? Oh, and there are some biscuits in that bag.’  
  
Mrs Hudson rolled her eyes, grabbing the shopping bags as she made her way to the kitchen, muttering audible bad-tempered remarks.  
  
***  
  
‘John. John. Anyone in?’  
  
Missy Cabaret was tapping gently on her date’s head, frowning. John jerked back to reality with a start. He smiled across the cheap table in the diner to show nothing was wrong, but inside he was seething. He’d been thinking about Sherlock again. Thinking about his mesmerising eyes, his thick brown hair, how it would feel to run his hands through it... Oh God. John stood up so fast that his chair toppled over behind him. Muttering a hurried excuse to Missy, he grabbed his coat and escaped into the cool night air. Damn that detective.  
  
John spun wildly, picking a street at random and hurrying up it. He had to stop this. Sherlock was... well, Sherlock was Sherlock. Off limits. Turning down yet another street, John realised that somehow, his unconscious mind had taken him home. He stopped in front of 221b Baker Street, breathing hard. Could he face the mixed emotions that always hit him when he saw Sherlock? Then, as the warm air wafting out from the gaps around the door caressed his face enticingly, he decided that he probably could. Probably.  
  
John winced as the stairs creaked underfoot, then mentally chided himself for being an idiot. After all, he paid half the rent, so it was his apartment as much as Sherlock’s. The door was propped open, and soft violin music was drifting out. John felt his muscles relax. There was something so calming about this place, this moment, with the music, the smell of tea, the sound of Mrs Hudson yelling...wait, what? John peered uncertainly round the doorframe. Sherlock was silhouetted against the window, stroking the bow up and down the violin strings, and paying absolutely no attention to his landlady, who was shaking her fist ferociously and brandishing a bag of severed ears. John sighed. Just another day in loony land.  
  
He stepped back to a safe distance as Mrs Hudson stormed out the door making some very un-ladylike comments. Sherlock was still playing, so John moved around the apartment room quietly, dumping his coat, keys and various other items where it would be a miracle if he ever found them again. That done, he stood behind Sherlock for a while, letting the music calm him. It was a sad song, mixed with bitterness. John sighed. Sherlock must be having one of his moods.  
  
John was jerked out of his reverie by a sudden hitch in the music. Sherlock dropped the bow on the ground, and let the violin dangle loosely from his hand, spinning around to face his roommate. There was an awkward silence as both remembered their previous conversation. John coughed awkwardly, and spoke at the same time as Sherlock.  
  
‘I’ll just make a cup of tea.’  
  
‘Why don’t you just make a cup of tea?’  
  
Silence again. John coughed once more, then spun on his heel and stalked towards the kitchen. He heard music start up again over the whistling of the kettle, and leant his elbows on the counter, burying his head in his hands. He needed to snap out of this.  
  
Back by the window, Sherlock frowned as he let another part of his brain take over the playing of the music. He could solve a murder from a continent away, catch a perpetrator with a paper clip and a rubber band, drive people to suicide just by talking to them, but he couldn’t ignore just this one person. God, he needed to snap out of this.  
  
The evening carried on in the same awkward silence, both men being impossibly polite to each other. John would ask if it would be possible if he could perhaps maybe borrow the computer, and Sherlock would reply that yes, yes of course he could, please do, it would be his pleasure.  
  
That night, John lay in bed, tossing and turning, his mind buzzing with thoughts and images. It took him almost six hours to come to the solution to what he must do. At first, he pushed the idea away, not able to bear the thought, but at last he had to face the truth. There was nothing for it. He couldn’t have Sherlock, but knew that unless he did this, he would always know in the back of his mind that Sherlock was there. Unoccupied. John knew he would have to get married. To some girl.  
  
Sherlock lay quite still in his bed, the moonlight making his closed eyelids almost transparent. He was in his mind palace, running over options and thoughts. It took him almost ten minutes to reach a decision. He couldn’t have John, because John was well, John. Besides, who would want a high-functioning sociopath? Sherlock opened his eyes, firm in his mind of what he would have to engineer. John would have to get married.  
  
Both men fell asleep at the same time, both wanting each other, both knowing that that could never be.


End file.
